[HN Gopher] Where She Was From: The Collected Joan Didion
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       Where She Was From: The Collected Joan Didion
        
       Author : samclemens
       Score  : 6 points
       Date   : 2021-05-03 17:53 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
        
       | neonate wrote:
       | https://archive.is/paI4N
        
       | okareaman wrote:
       | I recently decided to do a deep dive on Joan Didion (and Susan
       | Sontag) to see what she was about without knowing much. I grew up
       | in the Bay Area during the time she wrote about it in "Slouching
       | Towards Bethlehem" and found it reflected more her sort of
       | depressed and dissociated view of the world than any accuracy
       | about the reality of the era. Her writing did get better and she
       | does deserved high praise, but her early stuff about California
       | for which she is famous for is not that good and probably
       | appealed more to the East Coast culture view of California at the
       | time.
        
         | cafard wrote:
         | My impression was she wrote more about LA and eastern
         | California than about the Bay Area, but it has been a long time
         | since I opened _Slouching Towards Bethlehem_ or _The White
         | Album_. I think you 're right, though. The later stuff, I can't
         | say--one of these days I should acquire a copy of her and
         | Dunne's _The Monster_.
        
           | okareaman wrote:
           | I think what people remember is her take on SF's "Summer of
           | Love" which she depicts as a dystopia worthy of a William
           | Gibson novel. Vast dislocations of uprooted people with no
           | meaning in their lives, that sort of thing. It had its
           | downsides, to be sure, but there was also a spirit of fun and
           | experimentation towards a new society. I prefer Tom Wolfe's
           | "Electric Koolaid Acid Test," which I thought captured the
           | spirit better.
        
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